everybody's grand

Did you know that there is a Brazilian mango that gives you a six pack, whitens your teeth and after prolonged use, may cause some people to sprout functional wings?

No? Oh well you have to try it. It’s all the rage in America and all the celebs are using it.

Don’t believe me? Good! I’d be worried if you did. But if you don’t believe that, then why believe all of the almost equally as outrageous and false health and diet advice that is thrown upon us daily?

As children, many of us are naturally inquisitive and bombard adults with continuous questions that can often prove hard to answer. Who, what, where, when and why were some of my favourite words as a kid. I vividly remember some of the classics:

“Where do babies come from?” (I asked this during dinner after hearing something about it in an episode of Saved by the Bell.)

“What does gay mean?” (This was great to learn at a young age because it was at the time when kids around me were using it as a word for something negative which obviously, it is not!)

And one of my favourites: “Why do I really have to make my Holy Communion?” (To this day, I still don’t really know but my religious views or lack thereof are for an entirely different blog altogether.)

Isn’t it funny that as we grow older and wiser many of us stop questioning things altogether? This is particularly true when it comes to health and dietary advice in the media. I constantly hear people saying ‘Oh I read in X that bananas are good for eczema so I’m going to go out and buy them’ or ‘Our ancestors didn’t eat grains so we’re not meant to either’.

I’m not saying that you should dismiss everything that you read. There are plenty of trustworthy media organisations out there. It’s not all lies! But considering that many media outlets make the majority of their profits through advertising, you do have to ask yourself whether their product reviews and health advice columns are completely impartial or not.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. So for example, if you read a piece about how a certain food is good/ bad for you, why not get a second opinion? Also, check out who the sources are in pieces like this. If you read a piece about how cod liver oil is great for X, Y and Z and the only source is the head of a food supplement company, then you are entitled to be a bit skeptical.

I’ll give you an example of the above. I used to work in a health food store (which I can’t name or I might be sued for money that I do not have!) and in that store, we sold a health magazine. Each month, there would be a feature in that magazine which focused on a particular health food supplement and how it was the best thing since sliced bread (but it didn’t actually say this of course because, according to these ridiculous magazines, sliced bread should never pass through your mouth again.) I found that so many people who bought the magazine would soon be back in the shop looking for that particular product. Many of them would say that they read about it in our magazine and they wanted to try them out. What these people didn’t  know was that this magazine was not produced by an independent media outlet or by health experts but by the large company that owned our and many other health stores. So essentially, every article that they were reading was biased and had the aim of selling more products rather than improving anyone’s wellbeing. I did try to tell people this (I wasn’t very good at my job eh?!) and some listened, some didn’t.

But they have statistics you say! They quoted medical studies you say! If this is the case, well that’s great and the information may in fact by legit. However, in some cases, the results of medical studies (and all types of studies) can be skewed or misinterpreted in order to make a more interesting magazine article. Simplification, over-reliance on PR material, lack of context, simplification and sensationalism are all common issues when it comes to science/ health reporting. I actually did my dissertation on this and can lend it to anyone for bedtime/ toilet reading but I won’t bore you with all of the details now. I did just have a look through it though and came across some good quotes.

‘On simplification of facts: Ben Goldacre (2008) considers the simplification of science to be unnecessary, arguing: “Nobody dumbs down the finance pages. I can barely understand most of the sports section. In the literature pull-out, there are five long pages which I find completely impenetrable…” (Goldacre, 2008:297)

On sensational health/ science reporting: ‘…science is usually reported in short paragraphs ending in “est”. The fastest or the slowest, the hottest or the coldest, the biggest or the smallest and in any case, the newest thing in the world.’ (Slosson, 1921 as cited by Nelkin 1987:90)

On lack of context: ‘Ignoring relevant earlier research has been cited by Tankard and Ryan as one of the biggest problems in science stories (Tankard and Ryan, 1974 as cited by Stocking 1999). In addition, stories on emerging issues need to be put into context (Novella 2013). Providing the context allows the audience to make sense of the information and ultimately, decide how important it is in the grand scheme of things (Rogers 1999).

Sorry to bore you all with my academic ramblings from last year but I did it out of the goodness of my heart. It wasn’t easy for me to visit this dissertation either…it brought back memories of all-nighters, stress and throwing avocados at the wall in rage!

In terms of the media, I also must briefly mention the internet which I will be doing a longer post on later. In the modern world, many of us source our health information online and this can be dangerous. I mean, anyone can set up a website! Sure, look at me, it didn’t take my less than tech-savvy self very long to set up this blog. There are so many health blogs and sites cropping up these days with self-titled foodies, clean eaters and health gurus literally dishing out advice to their readers when they may not have a good grasp on the subject themselves. In my opinion, it’s a huge issue as with such easy access to the internet nowadays, many young people are reading these blogs and taking it as gospel. (Going back to what I said about advertising and money making, many successful bloggers also get sponsored by companies to endorse their products on their sites. Another reason to be skeptical!)

I want to point out that I am not trying to say that everything you read about health is wrong. Nor am I saying that I have always lived by my own advice. I too have believed a lot of inaccurate health stories and gone out and tried the latest “superfood” that they are pushing. (By the way, I have a big issue with the word superfood. It is just a marketing ploy. Why is the overpriced grain from Peru deemed a superfood i.e. a food that is very good for you but the apples from your granny’s back garden are not?)

So this leads to the purpose of my blog post. Some people are going to hear diet advice and question it. Others are going to try some things and dismiss others. And some people are going to believe every single thing that they read and, as they are often perfectionists, follow this advice to a tee. I was in the latter group for a long time.

As I explained in my last post, I suffered with anorexia for several years of my life. It began as an attempt to eat less junk food and lose a bit of weight but it soon spiralled into an obsession with “healthy eating” and losing weight. Reading things online, in magazines and elsewhere about what was supposedly good and bad for me just lengthened the list of things that I wouldn’t eat. In fact, they actually terrified me.

While these articles and ads certainly were not the cause of the eating disorder (nor were pictures of skinny models. That is just a silly idea that people have when it comes to the causes of anorexia), they certainly added fuel to the fire. Perhaps if I had learned to question things like I do now, things wouldn’t have gone as far as they did. I know there’s no point in dwelling on the past now but if I can  spread some positivity to others through this blog, I will be able to truly say that I went through all that for a reason.

Fair play to anyone who got down this far! I really hope this encourages people with and without eating disorders and body image issues to question what health advice they are being given. Please don’t believe everything you hear and please don’t waste your money on heavily marketed “superfoods” and ridiculous detox teas. Trust your own bodies and your own minds.

Amy.

x

PS: Obviously I do know that all babies are delivered by storks.